by virtue of their wry detachment, tempering even their most passionate assertions with irony. But what the best have in common is that they are great narrators – animated, perceptive and capable of maintaining a balance between sense and sentiment that allows for profound expression.

The new year sees a crop of releases from singer-songwriters seeking to uphold this tradition. One of these offerings is actually from a band – the Cowboy Junkies, a Canadian group that has flaunted its infatuation with rock's indelibly American roots. The Junkies emerged as pop contenders in 1988 with their major-label debut, The Trinity Session, a collection of adapted traditional songs, astute covers of tunes by the likes of Hank Williams and Lou Reed and impressionistic originals written by the brother-sister team of Michael and Margo Timmins – the band's guitarist and vocalist, respectively – all set to glowingly atmospheric arrangements. The band's less successful follow-up, The Caution Horses (1990), saw Michael taking the reins as primary writer and, perhaps consequently, marked a shift from the dreamy feel of Session's songs to more detailed accounts.

For the Junkies' new album, Black Eyed Man, Michael has written all but two of the tracks – both Townes Van Zandt contributions: "Cowboy Junkies Lament" and "To Live Is to Fly" – and once again a narrative style prevails. But while his songs on Horses felt unsure, often falling back on romantic platitudes and vignettes that intrigued but ultimately didn't go anywhere, Timmins emerges on Man as a storyteller to be reckoned with. Songs like "Murder, Tonight, in the Trailer Park" and "The Last Spike" recall Springsteen's landscapes, where the desire to belong to something or someone mingles uneasily with the instinct to escape. "I've got a horse in the country," Margo sings on one track, her tremulous soprano rife with yearning. "One day I'll saddle up/And the two of us will ride away."

The songs on Black Eyed Man are also more finely structured than those on Horses, freeing the Junkies to swing a bit. "A Horse in the Country" sparkles with a folk-pop sensibility that recalls 10,000 Maniacs, while "Southern Rain" offers a bluesier kick. "If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man," a duet with John Prine, sounds like a tender Fifties ballad, complete with a doo-wo